Sermon #1390 Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit 1

BRIEF, SILENT PRAYER

NO. 1390

DELIVERED ON LORD’S-DAY EVENING, SEPTEMBER 9, 1877,

BY C. H. SPURGEON, AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

“So I prayed to the God of Heaven.”

Nehemiah 2:4.

Nehemiah had made inquiry as to the state of the city of Jerusalem and the tidings he heard caused him bitter grief.“Why should not my countenance be sad,” he said, “when the city, the place of my fathers’ sepulchers, lies waste and thegates thereof are consumed with fire?” He could not endure that it should be a mere ruinous heap—that city which wasonce beautiful and the joy of the whole earth! Laying the matter to heart, he did not begin to speak to other people aboutwhat they would do, nor did he draw up a wonderful scheme about what might be done if so many thousand peoplejoined in the enterprise. No, it occurred to him that he should do something himself. This is just the way that practical men start a matter.The unpractical will plan, arrange and speculate about what may be done, but the genuine, thorough-going lover ofZion puts this question to himself—“What can you do? Nehemiah, what can you, yourself, do? Come, it has to be done,and you are the man that is to do it—at least, to do your share. What can you do?” Coming so far, he resolved to setapart a time for prayer. It never left his thoughts for nearly four months! Day and night Jerusalem seemed written on hisheart, as if the name was painted on his eyeballs. He could only see Jerusalem. When he slept he dreamed about Jerusalem.When he woke, the first thought was, “Poor Jerusalem!” and before he fell asleep again his evening prayer was for theruined walls of Jerusalem. The man of one thing, you know, is a terrible man—and when one single passion has absorbed the whole of hismanhood, something will be sure to come of it. Depend upon that. The desire of his heart will develop into some opendemonstration, especially if he talks the matter over with God in prayer. Something did come of this. Before longNehemiah had an opportunity. Men of God, if you want to serve God and cannot find the propitious occasion, waitawhile in prayer and your opportunity will break on your path like a sunbeam! There was never a true and valiant heartthat failed to find a fitting sphere somewhere or other in God’s service. Every diligent laborer is needed in some part ofHis vineyard. You may have to linger. You may seem as if you stood in the market idle because your Master would notengage you, but wait there in prayer—and with your heart boiling over with a warm purpose—your chance will come. The hour will need its man and if you are ready, you, as a man, shall not be without your hour. God sent Nehemiahan opportunity. That opportunity came, ‘tis true, in a way which he could not have expected. It came through his ownsadness of heart. This matter preyed upon his mind till he began to look exceedingly unhappy. I cannot tell whetherothers noticed it, but the king whom he served, when he went into court with the royal goblet, noticed the distress on thecupbearer’s countenance and said to him, “Why is your countenance sad, seeing you are not sick? This is nothing else butsorrow of heart.” Nehemiah little knew that his prayer was making the occasion for him. The prayer was registering itself upon hisface. His fasting was making its marks upon his visage and, though he did not know it, he was, in that way, preparing theopportunity for himself when he went in before the king. But you see, when the opportunity did come, there was troublewith it, for he says, “I was very sore afraid.” You want to serve God, young man. You want to be at work. Perhaps youdo not know what that work involves. It is not all pleasure. You are longing for the battle, young soldier—you have notsmelled powder, yet, and when you have been in a battle and have had a few cuts, or a bullet or two have pierced you—you may not feel quite so eager for the fray! Yet the courageous man sets those things aside and is ready to serve his country or his sovereign. And so thecourageous Christian puts all difficulty aside and he is ready to serve his comrades and his God, cost what it may! What ifI should be sore afraid? Yet so let it be, my God, if thus there shall be an opportunity to seek and to secure the welfare ofVolume 23 www.spurgeongems.org 12 Brief, Silent Prayer Sermon #1390Jerusalem for Your servant who longs to promote it with all his heart. Thus have we traced Nehemiah up to theparticular point where our text concerns him. The king, Artaxerxes, having asked him why he was sad, he had anopportunity of telling him that the city of his fathers was a ruin. Thereupon the king asks him what he really wishes. Bythe manner of the question he would seem to imply an assurance that he means to help Nehemiah. And here we are somewhat surprised to find that instead of promptly answering the king—the answer is not givenimmediately—an incident occurs, a fact is related. Though he was a man who had lately given himself up to prayer andfasting, this little parenthesis occurs—“So I prayed to the God of Heaven.” My preamble leads up to this parenthesis.Upon this prayer I propose to preach. The fact that Nehemiah prayed challenges attention! He had been asked a questionby his sovereign. The proper thing, you would suppose, was to answer it. Not so. Before he answered, he prayed to theGod of Heaven. I do not suppose the king noticed the pause. Probably the interval was not long enough to be noticed,but it was long enough for God to notice it—long enough for Nehemiah to have sought and have obtained guidancefrom God as to how to frame his answer to the king. Are you not surprised to find a man of God having time to pray to God between a question and an answer? YetNehemiah found that time. We are the more astonished at his praying because he was so evidently perturbed in mind, for,according to the second verse, he was very afraid. When you are fluttered and put out, you may forget to pray. Do younot, some of you, account it a valid excuse for omitting your ordinary devotion? At least, if anyone had said to you,“You did not pray when you were about that business,” you would have replied, “How could I? There was a questionthat I was obliged to answer. I dared not hesitate. It was a king that asked it. I was in a state of confusion. I really was sodistressed and terrified that I was not master of my own emotions. I hardly knew what I did. If I did not pray, surely theomission may be overlooked. I was in a state of wild alarm.” Nehemiah, however, felt that if he was alarmed, it was a reason for praying, not for forgetting to pray! So habituallywas he in communion with God, that as soon as he found himself in a dilemma, he flew away to God, just as the dovewould fly to hide herself in the clefts of the rock. His prayer was the more remarkable on this occasion because he musthave felt very eager about his objective. The king asks him what it is he needs and his whole heart is set upon building upJerusalem. Are you not surprised that he did not at once say, “O king, live forever! I long to build up Jerusalem’s walls.Give me all the help you can”? But no, eager as he was to pounce upon the desired objective, he withdraws his hand untilit is said, “So I prayed to the God of Heaven.” I confess I admire him! I desire, also, to imitate him. I would that every Christian’s heart might have just that holycaution that did not permit him to make such haste as to find ill-speed. “Prayer and provender hinder no man’sjourney.” Certainly, when the desire of our heart is close before us, we are anxious to seize it. But we shall be all the surerof getting the bird we spy in the bush to be a bird we grasp in the hand if we quietly pause, lift up our heart and pray theGod of Heaven! It is all the more surprising that he should have deliberately prayed just then because he had been alreadypraying for the past three or four months concerning the same matter. Some of us would have said, “That is the thing Ihave been praying for—now all I have to do is to take it and use it! Why pray any more? After all, my midnight tears anddaily cries, and setting myself apart by fasting to cry unto the God of Heaven—after such an anxious conference, surely,at last, the answer has come! What is to be done but to take the good that God provides me and rejoice in it?” But no, you will always find that the man who has prayed much is the man who prays more. “For unto everyone thathas, shall be given, and he shall have abundance.” If you do but know the sweet art of prayer, you are the man that willbe often engaged in it. If you are familiar with the Mercy Seat, you will constantly visit it— “For who that knows the power of prayer But wishes to be often there?”Although Nehemiah had been praying all this while, he nevertheless must offer another petition. “So I prayed to the Godof Heaven.” One thing more is worth remembering, namely that he was in a king’s palace and in the palace of a heathenking, too—and he was in the very act of handing up to the king a goblet of wine. He was fulfilling his part in the statefestival, I doubt not, among the glare of lamps and the glitter of gold and silver. He was in the midst of princes and peersof the realm. Or even if it were a private festival with the king and queen only, yet still men generally feel so impressed onsuch occasions with the responsibility of their high position that they are apt to forget prayer.

2 www.spurgeongems.org Volume 23Sermon #1390 Brief, Silent Prayer 3 But this devout Israelite, at such a time and in such a place, when he stands at the king’s foot to hold up to him thegolden goblet, refrains from answering the king’s question until first he has prayed to the God of Heaven! There are thefacts and I think that seems to prompt further inquiry. So we pass on to observe the manner of this prayer. Well, verybriefly, it was what we call a brief prayer—prayer which, as it were, hurls a dart and then it is done. It was not theprayer which stands knocking at Mercy’s door—knock, knock, knock—but it was the concentration of many knocksinto one. It was begun and completed, as it were, with one stroke! This brief prayer I desire to commend to you as amongthe very best forms of prayer. Notice how very short it must have been. It was introduced—slipped in—sandwiched in between the king’s questionand Nehemiah’s answer. And, as I have already said, I do not suppose it took up any time at all that was appreciable—scarcely a second. Most likely the king never observed any kind of pause or hesitation, for Nehemiah was in such a state ofalarm at the question that I am persuaded he did not allow any demur or vacillation to appear. The prayer must havebeen offered like an electric flash, very rapidly, indeed! In certain states of strong excitement it is wonderful how muchthe mind gets through in a short time. You may, perhaps, have dreamed and your dream occupied, to your idea, an houror two at the very least. Yet it is probably—no, I think certain—that all dreaming is done at the moment you awake.You never dreamed at all when you were asleep—it was just in that instant when you awoke that the whole of it wentthrough your mind. As drowning men, when rescued and recovered, have been heard to say that while they were sinking they say thewhole panorama of their lives pass before them in a few seconds, so the mind must be capable of accomplishing much in abrief space of time. Thus the prayer was presented like the blinking of an eye—it was done intuitively, yet it was done—and it proved to be a prayer that prevailed with God. We know, also, that it must have been a silent prayer and notmerely silent as to sounds but silent as to any outward signs—perfectly secret. Artaxerxes never knew that Nehemiahprayed, though he stood, probably, within a yard of him. He did not even move his lips as Hannah did, nor did he deemit right, even, to close his eyes. The prayer was strictly within himself offered to God. As in the innermost shrine of the Temple—in the Holy of Holies of his own secret soul—there did he pray. Shortand silent was the prayer. It was a prayer on the spot. He did not go to his chamber, as Daniel did, and open the window.Daniel was right, but this was a different occasion. Nehemiah could not have been permitted to retire from the palace justthen. He did not even turn his face to the wall or seek a corner of the apartment. No, but then and there, with the cup inhis hand, he prayed unto the God of Heaven—and then answered the question of the king. I have no doubt from the verywording of the text that it was a very intense and direct prayer. He says, “So I prayed to the God of Heaven.” That wasNehemiah’s favorite name of God—the God of Heaven. He knew to whom he was praying. He did not draw a bow at a venture and shoot his prayers anyway, but he prayedto the God of Heaven—a right straight prayer to God for the thing he needed—and his prayer sped, though it occupiedless, perhaps, than a second of time. It was a prayer of a remarkable kind. I know it was so, because Nehemiah neverforgot that he prayed it. I have prayed hundreds of times—thousands of times—and not remembered any particulars,afterwards, either as to the occasion that prompted or the emotions that excited me. But there are one or two prayers inmy life that I can never forget. I have not jotted them down in a diary, but I remember when I prayed, because the timewas so special and the prayer was so intense—and the answer to it was so remarkable! Now, Nehemiah’s prayer was never, never erased from his memory. And when these words of history were writtendown he wrote that down. “So I prayed to the God of Heaven”—a little bit of a prayer pushed in edgeways between aquestion and an answer—a mere fragment of devotion, as it seemed, and yet so important that it is put down in ahistorical document as a part of the history of the restitution and rebuilding of the city of Jerusalem! And it was a link inthe circumstances which led up to that event of the most important character. Nehemiah felt it to be so and, therefore, henotes the record—“So I prayed to the God of Heaven.” Now, Beloved Friends, I come, in the third place, to recommend to you this excellent style of praying. I shall speakmainly to the children of God—to you that have faith in God. I beg you often, no, I would ask you always to use thismethod of brief, silent prayer. And I would to God, also, that some here who have never prayed before would offer abrief, silent prayer to the God of Heaven before they leave this house—that a short but fervent petition, something likethat of the publican in the temple, might go up from you—“God be merciful to me, a sinner.”

Volume 23 www.spurgeongems.org 34 Brief, Silent Prayer Sermon #1390 To deal with this matter practically, then, it is the duty and privilege of every Christian to have set times of prayer. Icannot understand a man’s keeping up the vitality of godliness unless he regularly retires for prayer, morning andevening at the very least. Daniel prayed three times a day and David says, “Seven times a day will I praise You.” It isgood for your hearts, good for your memory, good for your moral consistency that you should hedge about certainportions of time and say, “These belong to God. I shall do business with God at such-and-such a time and try to be aspunctual to my hours with Him as I should be if I made an engagement to meet a friend.” When Sir Thomas Abney was Lord Mayor of London, the banquet somewhat troubled him, for Sir Thomas alwayshad prayer with his family at a certain time. The difficulty was how to leave the banquet to keep up family devotion. Butso important did he consider it that he vacated his chair, saying to a person near that he had a special engagement with adear Friend which he must keep. And he did keep it and returned, again, to his place, none of the company being thewiser, but he himself being all the better for observing his habit of worship! But now, having urged the importance of such habitual piety, I want to impress on you the value of another sort ofprayer—namely, the short, brief, quick, frequent prayers of which Nehemiah gives us a specimen. And I recommend thisbecause it hinders no engagement and occupies no time. You may be measuring off your calicoes, or weighing yourgroceries, or you may be casting up an account and between the items you may say, “Lord, help me.” You may breathe aprayer to Heaven and say, “Lord, keep me.” It will take no time. It is one great advantage to persons who are hardpressed in business that such prayers as these will not, in the slightest degree, incapacitate them from attending to thebusiness they may have in hand! It requires you to go to no particular place. You can stand where you are, ride in a cab, walk along the streets, be thebottom sawyer in a saw pit, or the top one and yet pray just as well such prayers as these. No altar, no Church, no so-called sacred place is needed! Wherever you are, just a little prayer as that will reach the ear of God and win a blessing.Such a prayer as that can be offered anywhere, under any circumstances. I do not know in what condition a man could bein which he might not offer some such prayer as that. On the land, or on the sea, in sickness or in health, amidst losses orgains, great reverses or good returns, still might he breathe his soul in short, quick sentences to God! The advantage ofsuch a way of praying is that you can pray often and pray always. If you must prolong your prayer for a quarter of anhour you might possibly be unable to spare the time, but if it only needs a quarter of a minute, why, then, it may comeagain and again and again and again—a hundred times a day! The habit of prayer is blessed, but the spirit of prayer is better. And the spirit of prayer it is which is the mother ofthese brief, silent prayers and, therefore, do I like them because she is a plentiful mother. Many times in a day may wespeak with the Lord our God. Such prayer may be suggested by all sorts of surroundings. I remember a poor man oncepaying me a compliment which I highly valued at the time. He was lying in a hospital and when I called to see him hesaid, “I heard you for some years, and now whatever I look at seems to remind me of something or other that you said,and it comes back to me as fresh as when I first heard it.” Well, now, he that knows how to pray brief prayers will findeverything about him helping him to the sacred habit! Is it a beautiful landscape? Say, “Blessed be God who has strewnthese treasures of form and color through the world, to cheer the sight and gladden the heart.” Are you in doleful darkness and is it a foggy day? Say, “Lighten my darkness, O Lord.” Are you in the midst ofcompany? You will be reminded to pray, “Lord, keep the door of my lips.” Are you quite alone? Then you can say, “Letme not be alone, but be You with me, Father.” The putting on of your clothes, the sitting at the breakfast table, thegetting into the conveyance, the walking the streets, the opening of your ledger, the putting up of your shutters—everything may suggest such prayer as that which I am trying to describe if you are but in the right frame of mind foroffering it. These prayers are commendable because they are truly spiritual. Wordy prayers may, also, be windy prayers! There ismuch of praying by book that has nothing whatever to recommend it. Pray with your heart, not with your hands. Or, ifyou would lift hands in prayer, let them be your own hands, not another man’s. The prayers that come leaping out of thesoul—the gust of strong emotion, fervent desire, lively faith—these are the truly spiritual prayers and no prayers butspiritual prayers will God accept. This kind of prayer is free from any suspicion that it is prompted by the corrupt motiveof being offered to please men. They cannot say that the secret prayers of our soul are presented with any view to our own

4 www.spurgeongems.org Volume 23Sermon #1390 Brief, Silent Prayer 5praise, for no man knows that we are praying at all! Therefore do I commend such prayers to you and hope that you mayabound in them. There have been hypocrites that have prayed by the hour. I doubt not there are hypocrites as regular at theirdevotions as the angels are before the Throne of God—and yet there is no life, no spirit, no acceptance in theirpretentious homage! But he that prays brief prayers—whose heart talks with God—he is no hypocrite! There is areality, force and life about his prayers. Brief, silent prayers are of great use to us. Oftentimes they check us. Bad-tempered people, if you were always to pray just a little before you let angry expressions fly from your lips, why manytimes you would not say those naughty words at all! They advised a good woman to take a glass of water and hold someof it in her mouth five minutes before she scolded her husband. I dare say it was not a bad recipe, but if, instead ofpracticing that little eccentricity, she would just breathe a short prayer to God it would certainly be more effectual andfar more Scriptural. I can recommend it as a valuable prescription for the hasty and the peevish—for all who are quick to take offenseand slow to forgive insult or injury. When in business you are about to close in with an offer about the propriety ofwhich you have a little doubt, or a positive scruple, such a prayer as, “Guide me, good Lord” would often keep you backfrom doing what you will afterwards regret. The habit of offering these brief prayers would, also, check your confidencein yourself. It would show your dependence upon God. It would keep you from getting worldly. It would be like sweetperfume burnt in the chamber of your soul to keep away the fever of the world from your heart. Besides, this type of prayers actually bring us blessings from Heaven. Brief prayers, as in the case of Eliezer, theservant of Abraham. As in the case of Jacob when he said, even in dying, “I have waited for Your salvation, O God”—prayers such as Moses offered when we do not read that he prayed at all and yet God said to him, “Why cry you untoMe?” And brief prayers such as David frequently presented—these were all successful with the Most High. Thereforeabound in them, for God loves to encourage and to answer them! I might thus keep on recommending brief prayer, but Iwill say only one more thing in its favor. I believe it is very suitable to some persons of a peculiar temperament who could not pray for a long time to savetheir lives. Their minds are rapid and quick. Well, time is not an element in the business—God does not hear us becauseof the length of our prayer—but because of the sincerity of it. Prayer is not to be measured by the yard, nor weighed bythe pound. It is the might and force of it—the truth and reality of it—the energy and the intensity of it. You that areeither of so little a mind or of so quick a mind that you cannot use many words or continue long to think of one thing, itshould be to your comfort that brief prayers are acceptable. And it may be, dear Friend, that you are in a condition of body in which you cannot pray any other way. A headachesuch as some people are frequently affected with the major part of their lives—a state of body which only the physiciancan explain to you—might prevent the mind from concentrating itself long upon one subject. Then it is refreshing to beable again and again and again—50 or a hundred times a day—to address one’s self to God in short, quick sentences,the soul being all on fire. This is a blessed style of praying! Now, I conclude by mentioning a few of the times when I think we ought to resort to this practice of brief prayer.Mr. Rowland Hill was a remarkable man for the depth of his piety, but when I asked at Wotton-under-Edge for hisstudy, though I rather pressed the question, I did not obtain a satisfactory reply. At length the good minister said, “Thefact is, we never found any. Mr. Hill used to study in the garden, in the parlor, in the bedroom, in the streets, in thewoods, anywhere.” “But where did he retire for prayer?” They said they supposed it was in his chamber, but that he wasalways praying—that it did not matter where he was, the good old man was always praying! It seemed as if his wholelife, though he spent it in the midst of his fellow men doing good, was passed in perpetual prayer! You know the story of his being in Walworth, at Mr. George Clayton’s chapel, and of his being seen in the aislesafter everybody was gone, while he was waiting for his coachman. There was the old man toddling up and down theaisles, and as someone listened, he heard him singing to himself— “And when I shall die, receive me I’ll cry, For Jesus has loved me, I cannot tell why. But this thing I find, we two are so joined, He won’t be in Heaven and leave me behind.”

Volume 23 www.spurgeongems.org 56 Brief, Silent Prayer Sermon #1390And with such rhymes and ditties, and choice words, he would occupy every moment of his life! He has been known tostand in the Blackfriars’ road with his hands under his coat tails, looking in a shop window, and if you listened youmight soon perceive that he was breathing out his soul before God! He had got into a constant state of prayer! I believe itis the best condition in which a man can be—praying always, praying without ceasing, always drawing near to God withthese brief prayers. But if I must give you a selection of suitable times I should mention such as these. Whenever you have a great joy,cry, “Lord, make this a real blessing to me.” Do not exclaim with others, “Am I not a lucky fellow?” but say, “Lord,give me more Grace and more gratitude, now that You do multiply Your favors.” When you have got any arduousundertaking on hand or a heavy piece of business, do not touch it till you have breathed your soul out in a short prayer.When you have a difficulty before you and you are seriously perplexed. When business has got into a tangle or aconfession which you cannot unravel or arrange, breathe a prayer! It need not occupy a minute, but it is wonderful howmany snarls come loose after just a word of prayer. Are the children particularly troublesome to you, good woman? Do you seem as if your patience was almost wornout with the worry and harassment? Now for a brief prayer! You will manage them all the better and you will bear withtheir naughty tempers all the more quietly. At any rate your own mind will be the less ruffled. Do you think that there isa temptation before you? Do you begin to suspect that somebody is plotting against you? Now for a prayer. “Lead me ina plain path because of my enemies.” Are you at work at the bench, or in a shop, or a warehouse where lewd conversationand shameful blasphemies assail your ears? Now for a short prayer! Have you noticed some sin that grieves you? Let itmove you to prayer! These things ought to remind you to pray. I believe the devil would not let people swear so much if Christian people always prayed every time they heard anoath. He would then see it did not pay. Their blasphemies might somewhat be hushed if they provoked us to supplication!Do you feel your own heart going off the lines? Does sin begin to fascinate you? Now for a prayer—a warm, earnest,passionate cry, “Lord, hold me up!” Did you see something with your eyes and did that infect your heart? Do you feel asif “your feet were almost gone and your steps had well near slipped?” Now for a prayer—“Hold me, Lord, by my righthand.” Has something quite unlooked-for happened? Has a friend treated you badly? Then, like David, say, “Lord, putto nothing the counsel of Ahithophel.” Breathe a prayer now! Are you anxious to do some good? Be sure to have prayer over it. Do you mean to speak tothat young man about his soul? Pray first, Brothers and Sisters. Do you mean to address yourself to the members of yourclass and write them a letter this week about their spiritual welfare? Pray over every line, Brothers and Sisters. It isalways good to have praying going on while you are talking about Christ! I always find I can preach better if I can praywhile I am preaching. And the mind is very remarkable in its activities. It can be praying while it is studying—it can belooking up to God while it is talking to man! And there can be one hand held up to receive supplies from God while theother hand is dealing out the same supplies which He is pleased to give! Pray as long as you live! Pray when you are in great pain—the sharper the pang—the more urgent and importunateshould your cry to God be. And when the shadow of death gathers round you and strange feelings flush or chill you, andplainly tell that you near the journey’s end, then pray! Oh that is a time for brief prayer! Short and pithy prayers likethis—“Hide not Your face from me, O Lord.” Or this, “Be not far from me, O God” will doubtless suit you. “LordJesus, receive my spirit,” were the thrilling words of Stephen in his extremity! And “Father, into Your hands I commendMy spirit,” were the words that your Master, Himself, uttered just before He bowed His head and gave up the ghost. Youmay well take up the same strain and imitate Him. These thoughts and counsels are so exclusively addressed to the saints and faithful Brothers and Sisters in Christ thatyou will be prone to ask. “Is not there anything to be said to the unconverted?” Well, whatever has been spoken in theirhearing may be used by them for their own benefit. Now let me address myself to you as pointedly as I can. Though youare not saved, yet you must not say, “I cannot pray.” Why, if prayer is so simple, what excuse can you have for neglectingit? It needs no measurable space of time. Such prayers as these, God will hear, and you have, all of you, the ability andopportunity to think and to express them if you have only that elementary faith in God which believes “that He is, andthat He is a rewarder of them that diligently seek Him.”

6 www.spurgeongems.org Volume 23Sermon #1390 Brief, Silent Prayer 7 Cornelius had, I suppose, got about as far as this when he was admonished by the angel to send for Peter, whopreached to him peace by Jesus Christ to the conversion of his soul! Is there such a strange being in the Tabernacle as aman or woman that never prays? How shall I expostulate with you? May I steal a passage from a living poet who, thoughhe has contributed nothing to our hymn books, hums a note so suited to my purpose and so pleasant to my ear that I liketo quote it— “More things are worked by prayer Than this world dreams of. Therefore let your voice Rise like a fountain, flowing night and day! For what are men better than sheep or goats, That nourish a blind life within the brain, If, knowing God, they lift not hands of prayer, Both for themselves and those who call them friend? For so the whole round world is every way Bound by gold chains about the feet of God.”I do not suspect there is a creature here who never prays because people generally pray to somebody or other. The manthat never prays to God such prayers as he ought, prays to God such prayers as he ought not! It is an awful thing when aman asks God to damn him—and yet there are persons that do that! Suppose He were to hear you? He is a prayer-hearing God! If I address one profane swearer here I would like to put this matter clearly to him. Were the Almighty to hear you—if your eyes were blinded and your tongue were struck dumb while you were uttering a wild imprecation—how wouldyou bear the sudden judgment on your impious speech? If some of those prayers of yours were answered for yourself—and if some that you have offered in your passion for your wife and for your child were fulfilled to their hurt and yourdistraction—what an awful thing it would be! Well, God does answer prayer, and one of these days He may answer your prayers to your shame and everlastingconfusion. Would not it be well now, before you leave your seat, to pray, “Lord, have mercy upon me. Lord, save me.Lord, change my heart. Lord, give me to believe in Christ. Lord, give me now an interest in the precious blood of Jesus.Lord, save me now”? Will not each one of you breathe such a prayer as that? May the Holy Spirit lead you to do so! Andif you once begin to pray aright I am not afraid that you will never leave off, for there is a something that holds the soulfast in real prayer.